The new parking scheme was implemented for just last Tuesday, August 11, 2015. Cebu City Traffic Office (CCTO) executive director Rey Gealon said that this was the proposed solution to ease the flow of traffic in the area because the previous parking scheme, the roundabout or carousel parking which meant cars would park diagonally, facing the establishment.

Gealon explained that based on the data they gathered in the months that the diagonal carousel parking was implemented, “By and large, vehicles occupy three lanes as other vehicles still utilized the outer lane to surreptitiously load and unload passengers despite the allocated inner lane for that purpose. Drivers of passing vehicles find it difficult to maneuver along as they are left with fewer lanes around the Fuente Osmeña rotunda.”

The previous scheme allowed traffic to use only 3 lanes of the rotunda’s 7 lanes. Gealon is positive about the parallel parking, “This is the scheme that the CCTO sees fit to ensure a smooth flow of traffic in the rotunda.”

In the CCTO’s new parking scheme, cars now would have to be parked with the car facing sideways instead of facing the establishments in the previous parking scheme. The outermost lane by the sidewalk is designated for parking while the inner lane is for drop-offs and pick-ups. The rotunda has a total of 7 lanes and the parallel parking ideally should optimize the road for traffic flow.

Owners of the establishments asked for the carousel parking to be reimplemented since it gave customers more access to their businesses. The CCTO refused with the director saying, “It’s 50 percent less parking space for them but then, it’s a matter of balancing interests. If it means we can provide more lanes for the public to use, then we have to sacrifice private interests.”